CBR 13 # 12 - The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

"Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America."

I was hesitant to start this book since I had so much trouble with finishing (really, starting) Zone One (from the same author) but I was pleasantly surprised that this immediately got my attention and I found myself compulsively reading it.

 The story us about Cora, a slave in a plantation in Georgia.  Her mother had escaped when she was young and she is an outcast even from her fellow slaves.  The book follows her journey as she escapes from the plantation and rides the underground railroad on her way to freedom, with some stops along the way.

The novel is historical fiction, i guess, but I think it's more alternate history.  Most of the details of slave and plantation life are accurate, but the Underground Railroad is imagined as a real railroad with actual trains.  As an aside, I must admit, when I was a child, not being from the US and only hearing/reading about it in snippets, I DID think at first that the underground railroad was an actual railroad.  In the book, the an actual railroad and trains allows Cora to travel to different states.  In each of these states, she experiences or is witness to the various atrocities perpetuated on black people.  I do not think that in real life they happened during the time period the book is set in, but actual atrocities like the Tuskegee Syphilis studies and the Tulsa Massacre are transported and into the period and Cora made to experience them.  That makes the book pretty admirable as a concept.

Cora is a brave and strong protagonist.  She has a lot of luck, good and bad.  Meets people, loses them.  I really liked the book and I think maybe its am important one.  But I just think it ends abruptly or it leaves me wanting more?  Not just for the end but throughout the whole book.  Maybe that's a testament to how good the concept and the writing is, I keep wanting it to be this epic thousand page book but alas, there was no more to read.  WIll just wait for the release of the mini-series. 

CBR 13 #11 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The book opens up from the perspective of a boy out on a party with a flighty, superficial and possibly spoiled socialite.  I think this was intentional on the part of the author.  A party girl is not what we expect to be a heroine of a story, much less a horror one.  Noemi Taboada is a lovely heroine. Unusual in that she is smart and strong (as most heroines are) but also flighty, stubborn and a socialite who enjoys going to parties and flirting with boys (which most heroines are not).

Noemi is living the good life in 1950s Mexico.  Sure, going to parties and enjoying life but also trying to find meaning and something that fulfills her, hence constantly shifting disciplines.  Her father convinces her (through a promise of higher education) to check on her close cousin Catalina's  who had been recently married.  Catalina had sent an unhinged letter and was thought to be sick

So she travels to the High Place, the grand mansion owned by the Doyle family, where Cataline lives with her English husband, Virgil and his family.  The family is just the patriarch, Howard Doyle, the aunt, Florence and the nephew Francis.  High Place is in a remote and mountainous region of  Mexico where there used to be silver mined by the Doyle family.  But various tragedies and sicknesses has stopped mine operations and there is now just a poor, sad town and the desolate and damp mansion.

Of course, things get weird.  Who are Noemi's allies?  What the hell is wrong with Catalina?  Why is Howard Doyle so gross?  Are things really happening or is Noemi going crazy?  At various times in the book I guessed that it was all hallucinations from mold, or that they were vampires, or that it was all a misunderstanding.  The real answer is hella weird but also satisfying.  It is not afraid to delve into the supernatural.

Throughout the book, there are themes of colonialism, eugenics and fetishization of dark bodies.  Noemi is a privileged young lady, no doubt being born rich., but to the white Englishman Howard Doyle, she was still brown and lesser.  It goes hand in hand with how women, even white women are treated as disposable and mere carriers of babies. I found it fascinating that the book shows how rot and stagnation manifests when old money and whiteness is maintained.  Speaking of rot, there is a some gross body horror, not too much but enough for me, thank you, so be warned.

So I really liked it.  The first part is a slow burn but I enjoy how we get to know Noemi.  Like I said, i loved her.  There is also a bit of a subdued love story which I found simultaneously sweet (because I love pale troubled boys) and also uncomfortable and foreboding, especially during the ending. 

CBR 13 # 10 The Other Woman by Sandie Jones

It has been around two weeks since I've finished this book and frankly, its taking me some time to conjure up details of the book.  Not to say that it's bad, maybe just a bit generic?  Even the title and the author name is generic (sorry Sandie Jones) I'm sure I've read a lot of psychological thrillers like this.  You know that ones where the bad guy could be anyone, and there is definitely a *SPOILER ALERT* big twist or some misunderstanding.  This one book just hangs along the with the rest of them and does not really rise above.

Emily met the man of her dreams.  Adam seems to be the perfect man. His brother James is also perfect (maybe too perfect) but his mother Pammie is the mother in law from hell.  And he seems unhealthily attached to her.  But Emily is never really sure that her Pammie is actually being horrible.  Everyone seems to think she is wonderful.  What  is up with all that?

Like I said above, it is a serviceable psychological thriller and it is a function of the genre that they must be compulsively readable, even if just to confirm if your theory is correct.  In that sense, it is a success.  However, I think it fails in giving is a heroine that is fully characterized.  Her characterization is very superficial.  I know nothing of her except that her ex fiance cheated on her and she is super in love with Adam.  And she makes some fairly stupid choices.  But I do appreciate that unlike most books like this, her bestfriends and her family completely believe her, even when her assertions seem paranoid at times.  So that's a plus.  Makes it less frustrating to read. Anyway, it's not bad for what it is, just a bit forgettable.

CBR 13 # 9 No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai is an esteemed author of classical Japanese literature, but he was a troubled man in real life.  Like a lot of classical Western authors, he squandered his money on alcohol and prostitutes, and ultimately, died by suicide at a relatively young age.  The tortured genius thing is not just a Western trope, I guess.

This book, his last before his death, is purported to be fiction, but is almost biographical in how the beats of the story reflect his real life.  So maybe it is the truest explanation of who he was or how he saw himself.

The novel follows the life of Obo Yozo, from his boyhood in the countryside to his time in college, and his various self destructive and just plain destructive "adventures".  From a very young age, he has felt like he could not relate to, could not connect with and was deathly afraid of other people.  Of people finding out his real self.  So he covers it up by being a clown, a perfectly amiable person who hides his true self.  His true self, which he sees it is not being completely human.  Or not qualified to be human. The effort of keeping this mask on eventually becomes too much and leads him to spiral, bringing others down with him.

It is an engrossing and interesting book.  The soul baring was at times intense.  Days after having read it, I still find myself parsing out and analysing how I think of it.  What my opinion of the book and the protagonist is.  At times, I find myself empathizing deeply, for who has not put up a mask and felt othered.  I feel so sad for Yozo, and by extension, the author.    But then, I have spent too much of my life associating with damaged men and being collateral damage that I feel anger bubbling up.  So, in the end, I guess it does what good literature is supposed to do.  It makes you feel and think, it challenges, it provokes.

CBR 13 # 8 Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

*WARNING, THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS.  NOT REALLY MAJOR ONES, BUT IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BEFORE READING THE BOOK, SKIP THE REVIEW 

I read three Lisa Jewell books in succession more than ten years ago.  They just seemed to pop up a lot in my  favourite second hand book store.  From what I remember, they were more or less "chick lit", some twists but mostly focused on romance.  They were light, fast reads, and I liked them but was not totally wowed by them.  But I do remember, that she had the ability to write infuriating characters that you're still interested in.  

After all these years of not keeping up with her work, I was surprised to find that she seemed to have branched off to a more thriller/suspense/mystery genre.   Those kinds of books with twists that got ubiquitous after the success of Gone Girl.

15-year old Ellie was a golden girl, with the perfect boyfriend.  Favored by her mother, with a bright future ahead of her.  Then she disappears..  Ten years later, her mother Lauren,is living an unsatisfying life, divorced, barely having a relationship with her two remaining children and still desperately wanting to know what happened to her beloved girl.  Then Ellie's body is finally found.  This seems to Lauren some measure of closure and opers her up to a handsome single father she meets at a coffee.  She is the happiest she has ever been in 10 years.  Until she meets his 9 year old daughter.  Who looks exactly like Ellie.  What happens next is the unravelling of the mystery of what happened to Ellie.  But along the way, our protagonists learns some things about herself, her grief, and her family.

Like all the other Lisa Jewell books I've read, this sure is a page turner.  She also still knows how to write annoying and flawed but ultimately relatable characters.

The twists and crimes are dark, but they somehow have a lighter feel.  It just didn't seem as grim and dark as say a Gillian Flynn or Tana French book. There is a little bit of Lovely Bones feel.  I liked that the family relationship was a big part of the resolution of the book.  As a thriller, it was not really that thrilling.  It was more of a mystery.  Unfortunately, I could make out the twists pretty early on, but that did not really damp my enjoyment too much.  It is quick and engrossing read.